A recently launched online lost and found service - Yougetitback.com - claims that up to 70 per cent of lost items are recovered by those using the service.
It's a simple proposition: for €9.99 you buy a security tag sporting a free phone number and the promise of a "reward for return", and stick it on your mobile phone. If you lose it, whoever finds it can report it, by phone, or online. They get their reward - though a Yougetitback starter pack is an admittedly modest one - and you get your mobile. But does it work?
I lost seven valuable items in a matter of hours to test the claim.
"If you tag your assets, you can increase your chances of getting them back to 70 per cent," says company managing director, Frank Hannigan.
Not a boast to be taken lightly, especially considering the value of today's mobile phones, mp3 players and other gadgets.
But how to put it to the test? Simple. Just append said security tags to a number of portable items and lose them. The company provided the items, suitably tagged and registered.
First, I left a digital camera in the middle of St Stephen's Green, imagining as I did its bon voyage with one of the French exchange students lounging in the sun nearby. Then began a trail of wanton abandonment across the capital: a clamshell mobile in the Powerscourt Centre; a pair of glasses on a bench outside the Gaiety Theatre; an mp3 player left atop a deli counter; a second mobile on the Luas; a bunch of keys cast adrift after lunch; and lastly, a USB flash memory stick forsaken among the faithful at prayer in a city centre church.
I had a conviction that they would never again be seen. And indeedsome of them have not. However, most of them have.
First was the clamshell mobile. Had I been its genuine owner, I would have been delighted; the prospect of someone else reading through my text messages makes me shudder. This was followed by the mp3 player, then the keys and finally, much to my surprise, the digital camera.
The latter seems to have gone on something of a walkabout of its own. It was found behind a bus shelter quite some distance from St Stephen's Green and handed in to hotel reception staff who made the report; which is perhaps more curious than its journey. Why hand it in to a hotel when there's a reward on offer, and a free phone number to call? There is a possible explanation, one which might also explain why the recovery rate fell short of the promised 70 per cent.
With one eye on the international nature of travel, Yougetitback.com had been using an international free phone service with an 00800 prefix. Bizarrely, Ireland's 00800 service provider, Verizon, ceased handling calls from mobile phones the day after I went on my losing spree, apparently because the service was being abused by unscrupulous phonecard users.
"We had some glitches at the time of the trial, which was bad luck, but we were delighted that we still got four out of seven items back in spite of this," says Hannigan. "We've since worked things out with Verizon, and the service is now operating normally. We are also working to build our own global 1800 number by buying up numbers in countries around the world with the same numeric string."
Hannigan says they have carried out trials in Dublin and Cork and more than 75 per cent of 300 items were recovered. The service he provides costs €9.99 per item for three years cover.Ultimately, technical hitches notwithstanding, anyone who uses this service is at the mercy of people's basic honesty.
And while some of us might doubt our national propensity in this field, the research suggests that people are generally honest enough to report lost items if there's an easy, cost-free way to do so. As for the Luas mobile, the prescription glasses and the USB flash memory stick left on a church pew, they remain at large. But just because they're still out there doesn't mean they won't find their way home one day.